Pulse penalties and appeals
Pulse lowers a reliability score only for the member's own proven fault. Anything caused by Telegram, by our systems or by someone else never counts against you.
These rules are the same on every plan. A plan never changes a score, a penalty or an appeal.
The three Pulse marks
| Penalty | What happened | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Pulse poll deleted early | A Pulse poll you hosted, or a Brand Lift wave, was deleted before it closed, and the platform proved it. | −1.00 |
| Rewards offered for Pulse votes | Our team confirmed you offered rewards for votes as a host. You can't host Pulse polls while it stands. | −1.50 |
| Pulse poll broke the content policy | Our team confirmed a poll you ran as a brand broke the content policy. | −0.50 |
The amounts on your own reliability page and in Your ledger are the ones that apply.
Deleting a poll early: proof first
A poll counts as deleted early only when all of these are true:
- your channel could be read when the poll was missing;
- @OnflowAdsBot was still an administrator of the channel;
- the poll was gone on several separate checks, not just one;
- nothing was wrong on our side or on Telegram's while the checks ran.
Removing @OnflowAdsBot, or its right to post, counts only when Telegram reports which account did it and a later check confirms it. These never count as deleting a poll early: Telegram itself being slow, limiting the bot or failing; our own systems pausing; a channel we could not read; and a poll that closed normally at the end of its window. When the proof is not complete, nobody's score moves: the case goes to our team for review instead, and a person decides.
A proven early deletion also means no fee for that poll, and the brand gets that part back. See Keep the poll up.
Marks our team confirms
Rewards for votes and a poll that broke the content policy are never recorded automatically. A person decides, in four steps:
- A case is opened with evidence. Our team records what it found, with links, quotes or notes. The evidence is kept unchanged.
- You are told. You get a notice saying what was found, the score change it would carry, and until when you can answer. You have 48 hours to answer.
- You answer once. Open your reliability page, find the case and write your answer. Say what happened and add anything that shows it.
- A person decides. Never before you answered or the time to answer ran out. If the case is cleared, nothing changes and you are told. If it is confirmed, you are told the reason, the change and your new score, with a link to appeal.
While "Rewards offered for Pulse votes" stands on your record, you cannot switch on hosting or accept Pulse polls or Brand Lift waves. Polls you were already hosting are not affected by the exclusion itself.
Appealing a Pulse mark
Every Pulse mark can be appealed like any other penalty, from the row in Your ledger on your reliability page. A person reviews every appeal. See Your reliability score and appeals.
If an appeal succeeds, or our team finds the mark was wrong, it is reversed in one step:
- Restored, when you were not at fault: the exact points come back.
- Forgiven, when it was an honest mistake: the points come back too.
Either way, everything the mark caused goes with it: the points, the band it brought, an exclusion and any limit set while the case was open. A host excluded for rewards for votes can host Pulse polls again as soon as the mark is reversed, and you are told it was reversed. See When a penalty is reversed.
Your band and Pulse
Your reliability band sets how much Pulse hosting you can take on. In the Watch band you can accept up to 2 polls or Brand Lift waves to host in 7 days; in the Restricted band, none; in the Frozen band nothing new, and a poll you accepted that was not yet sent is cancelled and refunded to the brand, with no penalty. As a brand in the Restricted band, your polls are checked by the team before they go out. A new account hosts at most 1 poll in 7 days until it has completed 3 hostings. Your band also sets how long your payout waits. See Your band.
How to recover
Besides an appeal, a score recovers with time and clean activity, as for any penalty, and clean completed hostings with different members speed it up, within a limit. Hosting polls cleanly, keeping each one up until it closes, and never offering anything for votes keeps your record clean. See How the score climbs and recovers.